About Charity Journal
A newsroom that keeps a ledger.
Charity Journal is the public record of charitable giving: where the money goes, which organizations can account for it, and what the job costs the people who do it. We run a live database of global giving, and a newsroom that reports out of it.
- 01Donationdate · donor · amount · cause · recipient · region · beneficiaries
- 02Organizationname · country · giving over time · causes · board · grants
- 03Countrytotal received · domestic share · per capita · cause split
- 04Floworigin → destination · amount · cause · event
- 05Grantfunder · program · status · amount · deadline
- 06Casedate · country · organization · killed · wounded · kidnapped · detained
- 07Personname · role · organization · nationality · age
Why this exists
Charity is one of the largest flows of money on earth, and one of the least accountable
Most of what the public can learn about it arrives as a press release: a headline figure, no breakdown, no way to compare it to anything else or check it a year later. So we keep a database instead, and we report from it.
The ledger
Every figure holds its own row
A donation enters the record with its date, amount, cause, recipient and source. That makes it sortable, comparable across countries and causes, and still checkable in a year — without reading a single article.
The newsroom
Every story reports out of it
Our reporters cover the sector daily and work from the same database, so a figure in a story links back to the row it came from and the document behind that row. The journalism and the data check each other.
The operation
What we publish
The database
The Charity Giving Tracker
A live record of charitable money moving around the world. Donations enter the ledger with a date, a source and a cause. Recipients resolve to a single organization profile — giving over time, a cause breakdown, an about section, an activity feed, board members and grant programs, all sourced and dated. Countries carry their own totals, domestic share, per-capita giving and cause split, and cross-border gifts are drawn as flows on a world map from origin to destination.
Accountability
Frontline Watch
Every documented attack on aid workers, case by case: killed, wounded, kidnapped, detained. Each case carries its date, country, organization and source, and the people involved are listed by name, role and nationality wherever names have been released.
See the cases →Daily
News
Humanitarian and nonprofit reporting as it happens — funding decisions, regulation, governance failures, disaster response, aid cuts and the sector's own labor market. Breaking coverage first, then the row it belongs to in the ledger.
Latest news →Funding
Grants
Open funding calls with amounts, eligibility and deadlines, written for the people who have to apply for them. Awarded grants join the tracker as records, so a funder's program can be read next to what it actually paid out.
Open grants →Why the record includes names
Where names have been released, people are listed by name. Where they have not, they are counted anyway.
A count of aid workers killed is a number. A list of aid workers killed is a record of who they were, what they did and who they worked for. Frontline Watch is built to hold both, because the second is what a family, a colleague or an investigator actually needs years later.
Cases are entered from published sources and stay open to revision. Numbers move as more is confirmed, and a case can be corrected long after it was first filed.
Method
How a record gets made
The tracker is only worth as much as the discipline behind each row. Every record moves through the same four steps, in this order.
01 Sourced
From a document, not a rumor
Figures come from annual reports, regulator filings, foundation announcements and agency releases. Estimates are never presented as counts.
02 Normalized
Made comparable
Amounts convert to US dollars. Recipients resolve to one organization record. Countries resolve to standard codes so a gift can be traced from origin to destination.
03 Published
With its source attached
The row goes live carrying its date, cause and source link. Organization profiles publish with the reporting behind them, including scrutiny the organization has drawn, not only its own account of itself.
04 Corrected
Changed when the facts change
Records are revised in place as better information arrives. If you can show a row is wrong, write to us and it gets fixed.
Editorial standards
What has to be true before a row is published
A figure only carries weight if the process behind it holds up. These are the standards the ledger and the newsroom are held to.
Sourcing before publication. Every figure ties to a document — an annual report, a regulator filing, a foundation announcement, an agency release. Estimates are never presented as counts, and unverified claims don't enter the ledger.
How it's enforced
- Correction
Records are revised in place as better information arrives. If a row is wrong, we fix it and note the change.
- Attribution
Every ledger entry and every Frontline Watch case carries its source, so a figure can be checked without taking our word for it.
- Full policy
The complete editorial standards, including how corrections and disputes are handled, are published in full on our editorial standards page.
Get in touch
Found something we got wrong?
Corrections, tips, data submissions and partnership questions all reach the same desk at hello@charityjournal.org. If you run an organization and want your figures represented accurately, send us the documents — we would rather work from your annual report than around it.